Charge: Husband killed wife then sank catamaran
Bennett gets complaint on day he’s sentenced for role in coin theft.
MIAMI — Lewis Bennett murdered his wife, Isabella Hellmann, on the high seas in May, then deliberately sank his catamaran in an ultimately failed attempt to stage an accident, prosecutors allege in a federal complaint issued Tuesday, the same morning Bennett was sentenced in Miami on related coin-theft charges.
The complaint, charging him with second-degree murder, never says how investigators believe Bennett killed the 41-year-old suburban Delray Beach real estate broker, his bride of three months and the mother of their child, and doesn’t specifically detail that he did. But it lays out a series of missteps and apparent lies it says all point to a deliberate scheme by the seasoned sailor to have the sea swallow his crime.
Bennett is set to be back in court at 2 p.m. today in Miami for his initial appearance on the murder charge, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison.
In those early hours of May 15,
west of the Bahamas, the complaint alleges, Bennett poked holes in both of his catamaran’s hulls from the inside and popped open two portholes below the water line.
It says he later admitted doing almost nothing to find his wife, devoting all his efforts to loading onto a life raft foodstuffs, water, a satellite phone and a homing device. And some of the tens of thousands of dollars in coins whose 2016 disappearance, while Bennett worked as a mate aboard a yacht in the Caribbean, led to Tuesday’s hearing at which the 40-year-old Bennett was sent to prison for seven months. The
man who owned both the yacht and the coins did not respond Tuesday to calls and emails.
Tuesday’s federal complaint suggests it was the timing of the activation of those electronic devices — the satellite phone and homing device — that might have been the most dramatic clue.
“The fact that Bennett waited until the final leg of his voyage to activate those devices is indicative of the fact that he wanted to ensure his own rescue and survival after murdering his wife and intentionally scuttling his catamaran,” it said, adding that a professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy stud- ied the evidence and agreed the catamaran “was inten- tionally scuttled.”
Hellmann remains missing. Members of her family, most of whom live in Boca Raton, attended Tuesday’s court action but declined to comment as they left. Palm Beach Gardens attorney Mitchell Kitroser, who represented one of Hellmann’s sisters when she tried in June to take control of her sister’s estate, provided a statement from the family Tuesday afternoon, calling Tuesday a “very sad day for my clients.”
“With this criminal complaint, the FBI has confirmed their worst fear,” the statement said.
Kitroser said the family has lost all contact with the couple’s nearly 19-month-old daughter, but thanked Bennett’s family in England “for continuing to send photos of Emilia to them, so they can, at least, see her and know she is well.”
Bennett’s father Tom, reached Tuesday in England, said only, “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything at all.” Bennett’s sister, Claire, reached in Scotland, hung up on a Palm Beach Post reporter.
Bennett separately has been trying in Palm Beach County Court to have Hellmann declared dead so he can settle her estate. But a judge has refused to rule until she knows more.
“Since Hellman had only been missing for approximately seven (7) months, and a husband would normally want his wife to be found alive, this request is extremely early,” FBI special agent James Kelley wrote in the complaint. “I am aware that the Judge overseeing the probate matter noted in open court that this legal action seemed rushed.”
Kelley said getting Hell- mann declared dead would immediately gain for Bennett things that were in his wife’s name but not his: title to the home — which was in the names of Hellmann and a corporation created by herself and Bennett — as well as Hellmann’s finances.
Tuesday’s complaint said Bennett told investigators that, at about 8 p.m. on the night Hellmann was lost, just after he’d dined and before heading below for the night, he set the catamaran’s autopilot on a course for Florida and told Hellmann to take the watch and wake him if needed.
He said he next was awakened by a sound of a crash from underneath the cata-
maran. At the time he was in international waters about 20 miles west of the Cay Sal Bank in the Bahamas, southeast of Key West.
The complaint said air- craft and boats “all reported that no navigation hazards were observed during the search and rescue efforts, including but not limited to, no shipping containers and no floating or partially submerged objects.” Kelley also said no other vessels were seen in the area where Bennett was rescued.
Coast Guard photos and video of the vessel show a small part of each of the two hulls was breached from the inside, the complaint said, citing the outward damage angle of each breach. Each hole was “nearly in the same locations,” it said.
“This damage was not catastrophic,” the complaint said, citing interviews with Coast Guard authorities familiar with boating accidents. It said the manufac- turer and sailing experts said opening the portholes would flood the catamaran’s cabin. The complaint said Bennett never mentioned the open portholes in a May 23 volun- tary interview with the FBI.
“Bennett indicated that he did not try to locate the source of flooding and did not mention taking any steps to stop the vessel from taking on water,” the complaint said. It said Bennett then began the procedures to abandon ship and gath- ered his belongings, and that he said he boarded the raft 45 minutes to an hour after being awakened.
But, the complaint said, the manufacturer says the design and quality of the ship, and Bennett’s experience, mean he should have been able to keep the catamaran afloat, had he taken basic steps.
Instead, it said, Bennett “indicated that he did not do anything.”
It said he didn’t set off flares and never searched the dark waters for his wife, and, in fact, said that once on the life raft, he cut the line to keep the catamaran from pulling him down.
The complaint said Bennett told investigators he called for Hellmann and threw a buoy and a flotation device into the water.
The Coast Guard called off its ocean search after four days. Within a day of that, Bennett wrote the agency and requested, without success, a “letter of presumed death.”
On May 20, the complaint said, Bennett bought oneway plane tickets for himself and Emilia to the United Kingdom, and he flew there on May 28, not telling Hellmann’s family of his departure. The girl is believed to still be in England.
Tuesday’s complaint reveals for the first time how Bennett was arrested in Florida in August on the coin charges. It said he returned to the United States for an interview related to his loss of his catamaran, known as the Surf Into Summer.
Neither the FBI nor the Coast Guard had said up to now whether it suspected foul play in Hellmann’s disappearance.
In November, Bennett pleaded guilty to transporting the stolen coins knowingly. On Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King handed down the seven-month sentence, which would be followed by three years of probation. The judge waived a fine of up to $250,000; Bennett’s lawyers said he had no money to pay it. Bennett, a dual citizen of England and Australia, also faces deportation.
The new federal charges never were mentioned in the 30-minute hearing. Lawyers for both the government and Bennett had no comment as they left court.
‘Bennett indicated that he did not try to locate the source of flooding and did not mention taking any steps to stop the vessel from taking on water.’ Part of federal complaint against Lewis Bennett, alleging he murdered his wife, Isabella Hellmann